Disabled Man Dies in a Fire in the Bronx

A young man who a neighbor said used a wheelchair was killed early Saturday in an apartment fire in the Bronx, officials said.

The man’s mother was seriously injured in the blaze, a spokesman for the Fire Department said. He did not identify either victim.

The fire started around 6 a.m. at 2705 Colden Avenue in the family’s fifth-floor apartment, he said, adding that while the cause was being investigated, the blaze did not appear to be suspicious. There were no other injuries.

The fire began in the kitchen and was expanding into the hallway when firefighters arrived, the Fire Department said in a statement released on Saturday evening. Firefighters found the young man, 23, in a bedroom. His mother, 54, was found in the hallway, the statement said.

A neighbor who lives on the fifth floor and would not give her name said the family’s apartment was charred.

She said the young man, was known as Jose, used a wheelchair and could not speak.

“The parents are very devoted to this young man,” she said.

The Fire Department spokesman said the woman was taken to Jacobi Medical Center in critical condition.

The spokesman identified the firefighter who rescued the woman as Ryan Blackwell, a new recruit whose father, also a firefighter, died in the Sept. 11 attacks.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 14 of the New York edition with the headline: Disabled Man Dies in a Fire in the Bronx. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe